Happy Birthday Hayden!

Today, my little Hayden turns 8! I'm so happy that he is my kid. He is a joy to have around this place. Every day, he tries to be the best brother, son, friend, grandson and schoolmate. Brandon and I agree that he's smarter than us. I can't wait for him to get home today from school so the celebration can begin!

p.s. We took this picture on April 1st, printed it out and hung it on the inside of the toilet seat in my bathroom with a sign saying "Ha Ha! I seeeeee you! April Fools!" Brandon thought it was very amusing when he came home and found it.

I Only Do It Because I Have To

Jake has a blanket that he drags around all day. He sleeps with it, eats with it, watches Dora with it and rides in the car with it. It is the single most important object in his life. Blanket gets filthy. I cannot wash blanket without causing much distress. I cannot wash blanket while he sleeps because he sleeps on top of it. So I have him help me put it in the washer, and turn it on, but as soon as the door locks he is devastated. So he watches it spin around with his other blankets and waits.

He tries to pull out the storage drawer on the bottom, hoping to use it as a step to reach the cancel button to free his blanket. It's hard to watch, but it must be done. I hope he doesn't hate me too much.

The Class Pet Survived!

Inside this lovely carrying case was our visitor for the holiday weekend-Bugsy the class guinea pig. Hayden was thrilled he was chosen to take Bugsy home on a three day weekend, not just the boring old two days that most of the other kids get.

I've never been a fan of pets that live in cages (rodents, snakes, lizards all kind of freak me out), but guinea pigs are actually really cute. He's pretty chill. He was happiest sitting in the log in his cage staring. That's my kind of pet.

When we took Bugsy out for some free time, Jake took his chance to treat Bugsy like he treats our dog-with aggressive love.

But we caught him in time and Hayden showed him how to give the guinea pig "soft loves".

The train table doubled as a guinea piggy play pen, and my boys couldn't have been any happier. The boys are BIG animal lovers like their dad so having another one was a treat. And it was good for me because he went back home last Tuesday.

All in all, Bugsy was fun. The only place large enough for his cage, out of the reach of Jake and the dog, was on my kitchen island. On day three of our time with Bugsy, I was cutting carrots for Hayden's lunch on the counter across from him. Suddenly I could hear little squeaky, chirpy noises and Bugsy was attacking the corner of his cage trying to get the carrots. Hayden thought that he could only feed Bugsy his guinea pig food so panic set in when I gave Bugsy a carrot. I had to spend twenty minutes looking up the care and feeding of guinea pigs on the Internet to show Hayden that fresh fruits and vegetables are good for them before he calmed down. So Bugsy survived. And now I'm a little less frightened of creatures in cages.

More of Hayden's Pictures

I love finding pictures that Hayden takes with his camera. It's always interesting to see everything from his perspective. This first shot is his view when he's lying in bed.

The trees in our front yard
Yesterday he told me, "Mom, did you know some people in my class stick out their tongues when they are coloring?" Now, this is something he does all the time-when he's coloring, doing homework, building Legos and now apparently when he takes photos-but I didn't tell him that. I just told him, "Wow that's an interesting thing to notice."

"What? What's that you say? Speak up, I can't hear you."

Oh the Joys of Being the Mother of Boys

Hayden learned a new trick this week. He is now literally climbing the walls.

Here is a shot of his dismount

Safe landing!

Jake has found his new favorite thing-trying to splash all the water out of the tub.

(The water isn't dirty, that's just the shadows of the drops)

Putting an unframed canvas painting in a bathroom was a bad plan. I guess it looks more homemade with the water stains.

The Lovely Noises Toddlers Make

When did my baby turn into a pterodactyl? Listen to the noises he makes when he gets to the other side of the chair.

Dogsitting

We are watching my sister's dogs while she and her family are out of town this week. They are well behaved dogs, but we were concerned about how they would get along with Jake. Toddlers can be pretty hard on dogs. They all couldn't be happier though. Jake loves two more doggy mouths to feed and the dogs think goldfish crackers are awesome. So it worked out well. Jake took his blanket and thumb to try out the doggy bed.

Here is Hayden trying to make the dogs attack him (my sister's dogs are the two farthest from the camera).

Jake loves playing anything that Hayden is playing so he just sat on the bed and screamed at the dogs. I don't think Jake's smile could get any cheesier.

Here are the dogs. Rocky is in front and the little one is Tiki. My dog, Bandit, is in the back. He's just doing what he always does-watch the other dogs and try to figure out how to play. He's such an only child. He doesn't have too many skills on how to play with others.

They go home tomorrow and I know all of my boys will be sad. We have had a great time with them, except for the Rocky running away thing. Sorry about that guys. But he's back! We'd love to have them anytime.